What is Diogo Dalot good at?

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He's done alright. He's not converted me or done enough to totally win me over, but its early days, and having proper coaching will certainly help raise his level. See where he is in a few months.
 
He must have taken this thread personally :lol:

I hope it lasts! The guy is just 23 so he can still improve or at least stabilize around the current level.
 
He’s a bit slow which is my main issue with him. The disallowed goal today showed up that flaw, he got caught out of position which is likely to be an issue with ten Hag ball, and he didn’t have the pace to recover. That and he’s not all that great going forward. There’s a decent full back in there, but we need better than decent for where we aspire to be. Full back is an important position in the game we’re trying to play. He’s decent as backup, better than I gave him credit for and better than AwB, but it’s an obvious area of the squad for us to improve on.

You can coach some things, but you can’t coach pace or natural footballing vision which he lacks.
Martinelli already had the run on him and is a very quick player.
Still agree that RB could do with improvement as a position, but he's playing very well at the minute.
 
Me too.

Let's see if EtH can work similar magic with Bissaka
Don't think it works with AWB
For all his past flaws Dalot always had technical ability which is an easy base to start with plus a decent cross in him. AWB is so so so lacking in technical aspects which is incredibly hard to coach into a player who doesn't have it especially one that's turning 25
 
Thread has aged like milk. The lesson, don’t give up on young players so quickly.

He’s had two maybe three good games.

if he has a decent season I think everybody will be happy though
 
Very rare you see many accomplished and young full-backs, so you'd hope there's plenty more to come from Dalot.

If he continues this form for the rest of the season, it takes a major headache off our hands next summer and we can focus on GK, CM and CF to strengthen.
 
He's getting guidance from Varane and protection from midfield and it's made a huge difference: he's playing with confidence and fight. Amazing how a functioning team can raise everyone's game, especially young players. He looked nervous every game he played last season, now he's one of our team's fighters and is showing a lot of passion. I don't think he'll ever be world class, but if he can keep this up his attitude and grit will take him far. I'm really warming to him a lot and happy to see him as one of the first names on the teamsheet.
 
He's now playing alongside Martinez, Varane and Malacia as opposed to Maguire, Lindelof and Shaw. Also, our whole team is now functioning as a proper unit, and this has all been hugely instrumental in him improving.
 
His crossing game is very underrated. Clearly he’s in the team because of his superiority in offensive areas over AWB
 
I personally think we stick with Dalot and support him as fans. The reality is every team is up against good players and our right back is no different to others or infallible. City's game where Walker was given the runabout by saint maximin if that was Dalot we would be expressing our concerns again. We just have to accept there are players out there capable of hurting us but with our back four now showing togetherness and up for the fight, its all about team effort to limit the damage they can do to us.
 
Playing very well lately, I was desperately hoping we would buy a right back in the summer as I thought Dalot wasa huge weakness, happy he has proved me wrong in the last four games and really hope he can keep this level of performance up - it would be very hard to find an upgrade based on his current performances and funds could be utilized elsewhere if he continues.
 
He's doing ok,despite getting caught out for the first (disallowed) goal.E10H seems to like him and he clearly gets on with the Portuguese speaking contingent.Keep improving Diego.
 
He has minimised his mistakes and maximised his strengths. But still not a proper RB to bring us to the next level.
 
His crossing game is very underrated. Clearly he’s in the team because of his superiority in offensive areas over AWB
He is also better than AWB defensively in pretty much everything except tackling and 1 on 1 defending. Of course, he is also better than AWB in building the play.

If Dalot progresses like this, Laird will be his deputy next season. If not, then we will sign someone and have Dalot as backup. AWB days here are luckily over, and what a total waste he has been. One of our worst ever signings (50m fee, 20m in wages for 5 years and we will be lucky to get more than 10m for him in the next summer). 70m spent on a player who cannot trap the ball.
 
The tide of a team can do a lot for a player. Does anyone think Trent has the career he’s had thus far if Liverpool hadn’t sorted their shit out? If he comes through their academy 10 years before he did, he doesn’t hit these heights imo.

Liverpool have won a couple of cups despite Arnold, not because of him.

He’s the last player Dalot should watch for inspiration.
 
Jose believed he was the best RB of his age group which seems hard to believe. He's not actually good at anything. Should be playing in a weaker league.
Playing pretty well for a guy who’s not actually good at anything isn’t he?
 
Hardly surprising that it took this long to see him perform well as he had barely played any first team football when he arrived, the team was a mess, toxic dressing room and we did a poor job of integrating him/had no plan for him.
 
Dalot has shown huge improvement in his passing, positioning and all round desire. Hopefully in the background AWB is being shown how run with a football and pass it to someone wearing the same jersey as him.
 
He has minimised his mistakes and maximised his strengths. But still not a proper RB to bring us to the next level.

It is not a new RB that will bring us to the next level. A better RB would help, but this is not a priority at all currently.

A new GK, press resistant midfielder (FdJ), and a central striker are the positions in need that will have a huge impact.
 
He’s benefitting from playing in a well marshalled defensive unit. Our midfield has also improved considerably so he’s probably not being asked to cover for players out of position half as much either.

I do wonder if AWB would look better too in this team or is his confidence shot at this stage.
 
I wrote him off when he was loaned to AC Milan, i couldn't figure out what he was good at. He seemed to be below par at everything.

This season however, his positioning is much much better, decision making improved. He actually looks a threat from the right hand side, I'm staggered by his improvement.
 
He has improved under ETH, especially in terms of his defensive performances. The arrival of Varane and lately Martinez has helped him, he can still get drawn out of position with a clever opponent, but he is improving, definitely.
 
Nothing pretty much IMO. He is just average at attacking and below average in defending. He was one of the reasons Antony was very quiet apart from his goal. He had many opportunities to pass to Antony but always chose to be very safe and hoofed everything clear. Even the couple of times Antony received the ball, Dalot offered no support by overlapping. Could be because he was instructed to be safe but for the level we are hoping to play he is useless. Martinelli had a field day as well against him so despite choosing to be defensive and safe he wasn't good at that.
 
It is not a new RB that will bring us to the next level. A better RB would help, but this is not a priority at all currently.

A new GK, press resistant midfielder (FdJ), and a central striker are the positions in need that will have a huge impact.
I disagree. Full back is a very important position these days, we need our fullbacks to be adventurous and attacking so that Antony/Sancho/Rashford can shine in the wings. There is no point in Antony and Sancho receiving passes but has to take on two players to do something meaningful. We need our fullbacks to venture up and overlap confidently.
 
Think the majority of us wanted a new rb but dalot is proving everyone wrong! Long may it continue, the funds could be used to improve other positions of the team. I think he just might be our most improved player along with mctominay.
 
Bringing a new player in is always a gamble, doesn't always work out.
I'd much rather he keeps this up.
 
Still amazed that we signed a RB (AWB) with 0 technical ability and no attacking qualities in this day and age.

Luckily we had this guy conveniently waiting for a chance. I remember he was very highly rated when we bought him. Lets hope he keeps evolving. He’s a prototype modern fullback, he’s just had too many flaws in his game up until this point. Would be nice if we could use money on other positions than RB next summer.
 
Very rare you see many accomplished and young full-backs, so you'd hope there's plenty more to come from Dalot.

It's not actually that rare though, full-backs pretty much peak earliest out of all positions on the football pitch.

There are also loads of pretty accomplished young full-backs in the Premier League if you look around currently and at recent seasons.

Trent Alexander-Arnold is only about 6 months older than Dalot and has already had a few seasons as arguably the best full-back around.
Reece James is a year younger than Dalot.
Ben Chilwell earned his move to Chelsea at the age Dalot is now.
Nathan Patterson is impressing a lot at Everton at 20.
Livramento was doing great at Southampton at 18 prior to his injury.
Kyle Walker was an England regular by 22.

etc. etc.
 
Dalot:

- good cross to Fernandes for our goal against Southampton
- got the ball down and made quick pass to Bruno in build-up to our goal against Leicester
- good cross to Eriksen for chance against Arsenal
- had a shot saved against Brighton
- involved in our goal against Brighton (lucky)
- decent cross to Fernandes for first of 4 chances within a few seconds against Southampton
- lofted cross to Ronaldo for overhead that went wide against Leicester
- 10 key passes in 6 starts so far

Defensively, he's clearly trying hard, though has made some errors.

Against Arsenal I thought there was very little understanding between Dalot, Antony and Rashford regarding where Dalot was going to pass/launch the ball down the line, so we lost possession too often.

I'm looking for 1+ goals, 5+ assists from Dalot this season, assuming he starts most PL matches.

I was watching those Access All Areas videos on the official website. In the moments immediately after the referee has blown for full-time, Dalot and Varane seem to the main players going around hugging team-mates, pats on the back etc.
 
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I've said it about a million times, but here we go again:

Defenders need long runs of games in order to be consistently good.
No matter how good a full back is, if they don't get minutes, they will never be good. Same goes with DMs.

Look how Fergie managed Brown, Fletcher and the likes. He gave them the chances they needed and they came out good. In their first seasons they were shakey, just as much Dalot was in his first years here playing for 30 minutes every 3 weeks.
 
He’s a bit slow which is my main issue with him. The disallowed goal today showed up that flaw, he got caught out of position which is likely to be an issue with ten Hag ball, and he didn’t have the pace to recover. That and he’s not all that great going forward. There’s a decent full back in there, but we need better than decent for where we aspire to be. Full back is an important position in the game we’re trying to play. He’s decent as backup, better than I gave him credit for and better than AwB, but it’s an obvious area of the squad for us to improve on.

You can coach some things, but you can’t coach pace or natural footballing vision which he lacks.
If anything, the disallowed goal showed me that Dalot actually has decent pace.

Martinelli is rapid and already got a head start on Dalot as he was already on the move. Dalot stayed with him pretty much all the way without the gap increasing.
 
If anything, the disallowed goal showed me that Dalot actually has decent pace.

Martinelli is rapid and already got a head start on Dalot as he was already on the move. Dalot stayed with him pretty much all the way without the gap increasing.

Exactly, there aren't many players in the sport that can keep up with Martinelli on a full sprint. Maybe Walker and a couple others.

And again, being quality in possession is more important in the modern game than being a defensively stalwart from the fullback position. You can mask defensive issues through structure anyways and how you press.
 
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